In 1999, all indications were that Asian commercial satcom and government space
programs had made some progress in recovering from the Asian-Pacific economic
crisis of 1998 and were quickly headed for more solid growth in the near future
despite difficulties.

India, China and Japan all have ambitious space programs capable of their own
launch and satellite development activities. In fact, with the addition in 1999
of South Korea to the players in the space technology area, future space commerce
could witness a new space race emerging, with Asian rocket and satellite builders
vying for commercial customers in an ever-widening field of competition on the
global market. With North Korea's failed test launch of its multi-stage Taepo
Dong 1 missile in 1998, the growth of satellite launcher developments with potential
strategic arms capabilities in Asia is today causing concern among space analysts.

Japan.
In the space area, Japan was moving ahead on satellite production, acquisition,
and launch programs. The country's National
Space Development Agency (NASDA) has recently taken a more pragmatic step
towards competing in the commercial launch market by developing the H-2A vehicle,
an uprated and more cost-effective version of the costly H-2 that began operations
in 1994. The H-2A shows future growth capability toward increasing payloads and
decreasing launch costs.

Japan's plans in space go beyond Earth orbits, entailing missions to the Moon
and to Mars. Its Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), which is
collaborating with NASDA on the unmanned lunar exploration mission Selene, in
1998 had launched its first spacecraft, Nozomi, to Mars on a $995 million mission.
Due to a thruster malfunction, the arrival date of the 1190-lbs. (540-kg) probe
at the red planet has slipped from October 1999 to December 2003 or January 2004.

One area of great promise for Japan is the International Space Station ISS
Program, in which the country is participating with a sizeable 12.6% share. The
human space flight program in Japan accounted for the largest portion of NASDA's
budget of $2.3 billion in 1999. From this amount, it allocated $451.4 million
to the further development of its contributions to the ISS, the Japanese Experiment
Module JEM, now called "Kibo" (Hope), along with its ancillary remote manipulator
system and porch-like exposed facility. Its intentions to develop the H-2A as
a routine supplier vehicle of the ISS, by means of its H-2 transfer vehicle (HTV),
which will carry about 6 metric tons of provisions, were dealt another severe
blow in 1999 when the H-2 launcher, on its seventh flight since 1994, suffered
its second straight malfunction (against 5 successes) on 11/15. As a consequence,
plans to begin flying the H-2-derived H-2A in 2000 were delayed for an indefinite
period, and the decision was made to terminate the H-2 launch program. Lost with
the H-2 was the 2900-kg. (6400-lbs.) MTSAT (Multifunctional Transport Satellite),
Japan's first Wide Area Augmentation satellite for meteorology and global positioning
in support of airline operations. The recent space mission failures in Japan,
according to an international review panel headed by Tokyo University Professor
Jiro Kondo and Jacques-Louis Lions, president of the Academy of Sciences of France,
can be linked to lack of coherence in the management of NASDA.

China. The People's Republic's space program
showed a strong comeback in 1999 from its previous years' commercial launcher
set-backs. There were four successful missions of the Long March (Chang Zheng,
CZ) rocket, including three commercial launches. These comprised one CZ-2C with
two Iridium satcoms and two improved CZ-4B's, one carrying a Fengyun-1 meteorological
satellite and Shijian-5 science satellite piggy-backed to it into polar orbit,
the other with the two Brazilian satellites CBERS-1 for imaging and SACI-1 for
science research. The fourth launch, on 11/19 on an uprated CZ-2F booster, was
an uncrewed test flight of China's human space flight program, designated Project
921 and announced in 1998. The 7200-kg. (16,000-lbs.) spacecraft named "Shenzhou",
a modified version of the Russian
Soyuz vehicle, orbited the Earth 14 times during a 21-hr. flight that ended
with the descent module's parachute landing and successful recovery on the plains
of Inner Mongolia. The first manned flight is now expected for the near future,
and two Chinese cosmonauts, Wu Tse and Li Tsinlung, received training in 1998
at Russia's Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) in Star City near Moscow
since Oct. '96.

Taiwan. Taiwan got the first telecommunications
satellite of its own when the $100 million, 884-lbs. (401-kg) Rocsat-1 (Republic
of China Satellite) was launched on a three-stage Athena-1 rocket on 1/25.

India. India, through the Indian Space
Research Organization (ISRO), part of the Department of Space (DOS), has intensified
its development programs for satellites and launch vehicles. ISRO plans in 1999
included 15 satellite missions and 10 indigenous launch vehicle missions through
2003. There was one launch in 1999, and it marked an important milestone for
the country's push into the commercial market. India's indigenously developed
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV, which evolved from the earlier SLV-3 and
Augmented SLV series, on 5/26 launched the IRS-P4 (Oceansat-1) as its primary
payload, along with two microsatellites from Germany (Tubsat-C) and South Korea
(Kitsat-3), on its first commercial launch. The PSLV, a four-stage rocket with
a unique combination of solid and liquid propellant stages, stands 44 m (144
ft.) tall and weighs 294 tons at liftoff; it can put a payload of up to 1200
kg (2650 lbs.) in polar Sun-synchronous orbit. Its first launch, in September
1993, was a failure, but the following flights were generally successful, with
some minor glitches. The 1999 launch was the fifth flight and the second for
the upgraded version, which has four of its six solid-propellant strap-ons ignited
on the ground (instead of two) and two in the air.

The next step for India now is attaining geostationary capability for large
(up to 2.5-tons) communications payloads. This is the purpose of the Delta 2-class
Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle GSLV which uses the same first and second
stages as the PSLV but four liquid propellant boosters instead of the six solid
strap-ons, and a single cryogenic stage replacing the third and fourth PSLV stages.
India purchased seven Russian KVD-1 cryogenic rocket engines for GSLV test launches
but was forced, due to missile technology transfer restrictions (Missile Technology
Control Regime, MTCR) to develop a cryogenic engine on its own. ISRO developed
the engine, with a first test fire in early 1998 of a pressure-fed version; the
flight version is to use turbopumps.

India's weather satellite program suffered a setback in 1999 with the failure
of the main meteorological sensor on the Insat-2E spacecraft which was carried
into space on 4/2 by a European Ariane rocket. The loss of the enhanced very
high-resolution radiometer (VHRR) reduces the quality of meteorological data
over the central Indian Ocean which are still being supplied by the older Insat-2E.

South Korea. After North Korea's failed
first space mission in 1998, which was an apparent attempt to launch a satellite
named Kwangmyongsong 1 on the multi-stage Taepo Dong 1 missile, South Korea's
President Kim Dae Jung at end-1999 announced a five-year initiative to design,
build and launch a commercial space cargo rocket, and to use the launcher to
create a commercial launch business for the country.